The Home Opener Hangover

It had a little bit of everything … some towering home runs, the thrill of extra innings, inability to throw out baserunners, beach balls in the stands … basically, it was a virtual cornucopia of baseball awesomeness.

Pitcher’s Duel, this was not

If you were expecting some sort of pitchers duel, you were in for a surprise. It definitely wasn’t a great night for the starting pitchers: Jake Peavy was roughed up for seven runs and Brian Tallet was charged with six.
Both guys had a tough time keeping the ball on the ground: Peavy with six fly balls, and Tallet with seven fly balls (several of them to the warning track).

Welcome Home, Rios

Maybe most surprising of all was the huge chorus of boo’s for Alex Rios. I didn’t quite understand why the crowd turned on him so quickly. It’s not like Rios wanted to be traded out of Toronto. What did he ever do to achieve the Level of Douchebag Excellence at the Rogers Centre that could only be bestowed upon someone like Alex Rodriguez or Jorge Posada?

Speaking of Rios … maybe it was just the angle I was looking from, but it appears his batting stance has become even stranger than last time. It looks like his knees are almost together and his legs are separated to make a V in the batter’s box. It looks very uncomfortable and unnatural … but what do I know. Rios was 3 for 5 anyway.

It’s Not All Frasor’s Fault

As Mike Wilner pointed out, some might point their fingers at Jason Frasor for losing this game, but Frasor was only part of the problem. From where I sat, from the the bottom of the eight to the bottom of the tenth inning, the Blue Jays looked absolutely horrible at the plate.

J.J. Putz and Matt Thornton practically had the Jays eating out of their hands. Nearly half of the Blue Jays final 15 hitters struck out … I’d say that’s a recipe for disaster there.

In Conclusion …

All in all, this game had a great amount of give and take with both clubs going back and forth with lead changes. Even though the end result wasn’t exactly what I had hope for, it was very entertaining to say the least.

Ian Hunter

Ian has been writing about the Toronto Blue Jays since 2007. He enjoyed the tail-end of the Roy Halladay era and vividly remembers the Alex Rodriguez "mine" incident. He'll also retell the story of Game 5 of the ALDS to his son for the next 20 years.

10 Comments

You're right, it was the Jays inability to hit that cost them a good chunk of the game. The real turning point came when they were only able to push one run across after Encarnacion doubled in the sixth.

But, a great game, plenty of excitement, and there was even a scoreboard spelling mistake (albeit during the announcement of the winning 50/50 ticket)!

Personally, I think Frasor has been a little overworked this past week … so Gregg might have been a better choice to close the ninth. Hindsight is 20/20 though.

I'm with you though, Ruiz should be getting as many at bats as possible. Unfortunately, Cito does not like to deviate from the roles … so we probably won't be seeing much of Ruiz this year unless Overbay goes down to injury or gets traded at the deadline.

It should be a good series – four games at home, and three more to go! It will interesting to see how many people actually show tonight. I'd be shocked to hear if the attendance is more than around 15,000-16,000.

The mistake was an incredibly geeky thing to notice, but when the 50/50 number came up, along the bottom, they said what their Lottery "Liscense" Number was (I think that's where the extra letter was; I made sure to get a picture. Again, geeky.)